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Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that otherwise "Hey Siri" wouldn't work on (newer) Macs. Still, you can use something like Micro Snitch to track webcam/mic use.

Also, in macOS Catalina (I don't remember if this was the case in prior versions), applications are not permitted by default to use the mic or camera and have to request permission.

These are perhaps not as good as a hardware disconnect, but I think Apple is trying to balance privacy and usability here. It is clear from what Apple is doing in hardware and software that they do care about privacy. Linux and AFAIK Windows do not provide that level of privacy, since applications have unfettered access to Cameras and Mics.

(Of course, a part of the Linux community is trying to improve this through Pipewire, Flatpak, and portals.)

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>The problem is that otherwise "Hey Siri" wouldn't work on (newer) Macs.

I've never heard anyone use Siri on their Mac. I'm surprised they still bother supporting it.

Me neither, but I also wonder how many non-expert users actually know that it is available. There is the initial dialog about Siri when setting up a Mac. After that, it is not that prominent. Moreover, it's a bit embarrassing to use in an office environment anyway.

That reminds me: I knew some people who had been using Macs for years who did not really know that Spotlight existed, let alone that you could use Command + space to start a Spotlight search. They would launch applications through the Finder and put regularly-used applications in the Dock.

I use it all the time. It's a great additional channel for commands in some workflows.

Can you give some examples? The only way I can think it's helpful is for hands free use, but that's more a scenario for a phone or tablet rather than a laptop.

Adding reminders is the only thing I ever use it for. They carry across to the iPhone, of course, so if I need to remind myself to do something later in the day it's quite helpful.

I'd use it to set timers, too (by far the most frequent thing I use Siri for on iPhone) but annoyingly that doesn't work from the Mac.

I got new AirPods and loved it for about an hour. "Hey Siri, open Spotify." "Hey Siri, next track" and so on while I was walking around. I'm spending most of my day on conf calls, so the AirPods are in anyway.

Then they started false triggering about every ten minutes. "Hey Siri, decrease sensitivity" does nothing. "Hey Siri, set a timer": "nope your $4k computer can't count time."

Turned it off. Sorry.

I use it to control my lights and heating when I'm in the same room as my computer (which is also my TV room).

As you say applications have to request permissions to access the mic/camera, here's a good writeup of how that was broken recently:

https://www.ryanpickren.com/webcam-hacking

That was not broken. What was broken was origin validation in Safari. There is a difference between a vulnerability in the OS permissions system (which this was not) to control mic/camera permissions and a vulnerability in an application that has already has OS camera permissions.

If you do not give an application permission to access the camera, then vulnerabilities in those applications do not lead to camera access.

(Unfortunately though, Safari is not controlled through this permission system, probably because it was provided through the OS. Permissions can be controlled for other browsers. IMO this should be fixed by Apple.)

I understand the extent of the security problem there, and as you say it was Safari-specific. But it goes to show that there might be consequences beyond the obvious when you do grant an application access to the camera/mic.

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